


What's Left, after Eternity, after Victory?

by LastHarlequin



Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: After eternity what next?, Bucket List, Fear, Gen, Gleeful disregard for mortality, The highest place she could find, The sickest flip you've ever seen, booyah, no regrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:34:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26185771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LastHarlequin/pseuds/LastHarlequin
Summary: Quistis walks out onto the Horizon Bridge with a mission in mind.  Damn the costs.  Because sometimes "before I die" feels like it could be any time now, so best to get to it.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2
Collections: Island Closest to Hell





	What's Left, after Eternity, after Victory?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ChibisUnleashed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChibisUnleashed/gifts).



Standing, eyes closed, breeze whipping through her hair. The salt and spray kicking all the way nearly a hundred feet into the air, the wind pushing her to and fro to the point she could barely stay standing. She could hear the running of feet toward her as she stood, wearing only a scandalous bikini to give her as much of the rushing wind as she could get. Arms spread wide accepting, begging for the impact of the waves down below. 

The horizon bridge is the longest, tallest bridge in the world. Stretching from one continent to the other without interruption nearly ten thousand kilometers. She could feel the footfalls of her friends running toward her reverberating through the rails, she only had a few seconds left to savor this feeling.

As they approached she pitched forward curling her body as she tumbled through the sky spinning with uncommon grace twisting in space with eerie silence. Then she opened her eyes and saw the waves rushing up at her and every animal part of her brain forced her mouth open to a shriek that carried in the empty sky. 

She had seen so much in her short eighteen years of life. Almost nineteen, but not quite. She had seen the end of time. And the beginning. All of history, all of existence, the universe itself collapsed down to a single, eternal, unchanging instant. She had walked that barren empty place frozen in a barren present that would have consumed all there was, ever bit of history and potential vanished to the ambition of one mad god. 

A god she raised her hand against. A god she railed against, challenged, and helped to dethrone, then destroy. Casting her out of time and existence to return the very concept of linear time. 

When you have seen the end of everything, and it was so blandly unimpressive. When you went face to face with god and found her wanting, what is left? 

So she had walked the horizon bridge, shedding her casual dress as she walked. Toward something new, an ending perhaps, but at least some scrap of novelty.

Looking back to her friends screaming after her from up above she shouted back up at them with wild laughter bursting from her as the water rushed up at her.

"BOOYAH!" followed by the crack of body hitting wave.

The water churning beneath her greeted her like concrete. She felt the impact through her entire body before she broke the surface and vanished into the depths with a vast splash…

Waking up was a pleasant surprise, made even more so by being surrounded by friends. The casts were less charming, but that was the cost of the attempt.

They were so kind, even Squall was there, though he stood aside to let those more inclined to talk forward. He was present, he did care. Tears were shed over her, hysterical crying wasted, because deep down she knew that it was not the last time she would leap.

After you’ve done what she’d done, what’s left but to have fun? Her smile for them was genuine, but the one inside her was radiant because she knew, deep down, that those flips had been Fuckin’ S I C K, and she couldn’t wait to top it.

**Author's Note:**

> I pulled a tricky on ya. Not sorry.


End file.
